Today the game is afoot as, Osmo, the award-winning learn and play system creating healthy screen time experiences, unveils Detective Agency: a first-of-its-kind, hands-on experience that takes budding sleuths on globe-trotting adventures to solve mysteries. The company also introduces a platform that allows parents to monitor time played and view the skills learned on the Osmo system.
“As parents, we understand the power of a thoughtfully-constructed digital experience to teach and entertain, but too often content is optimized to keep kids passively staring at screens for as long as possible,” observes Pramod Sharma, Osmo’s CEO and co-founder. “Detective Agency, like all Osmo experiences, was created to provide a healthy, digital experience centered on physical play. Our parent platform builds on that sensible screen time approach by helping parents better understand and even participate in their children’s experiences.”
Globe-Trotting, Hands-On Adventure
Detective Agency is Osmo’s 12th product and was developed by a diverse team of designers, engineers and developers assembled from around the globe who helped capture the spirit of exploration. As kids investigate the world’s most famous cities, searching for clues to help them solve mysteries, the escapade is brought to life with a real magnifying glass and physical maps.
See Detective Agency in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OL6Vq1CfLg
As the first-ever physical-digital, search-and-find experience, Detective Agency uses Osmo’s proprietary Reflective AI technology to let iPads “see” objects in front of it so kids can use anything - hands, blocks, maps, a magnifying glass, to control the on-screen action and story.
Here’s how kids ages 5-9 sleuth out adventure in Detective Agency:
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The adventure begins at the Detective Agency office in Osmo Town where one of the townspeople asks for help to find a lost - or stolen - item and gives a hint about where to start searching
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Sleuths use deductive reasoning, along with visual processing, emotional intelligence, geography, culture, and sheer wit to track the missing item across Paris, New York, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Sydney, Osmo Town, and the World
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Clues are hidden in the fold-out maps of each city, and growing gumshoes use a real-life magnifying glass to unlock the next chapter in the story and more clues that help them foil the villain behind the dastardly crime
Designed with stunning attention to detail and cultural accuracy gleaned from employees who actually hail from some of the world’s most iconic cities, Detective Agency features thousands of clues and landmarks, 20 original Osmo characters with unique personalities and eight maps to invoke wonder and inquisitive thinking
Osmo Parent Platform
Parents see first hand how intentionally addictive apps draw kids with a moth-like compulsion that results in children 8 and under spending an average of 2.25 hours per day staring passively at a flickering blue light.
While companies are building in ways to reduce distraction and the intrusion of technology into new products for adults, passive screen time is wreaking havoc on kids’ dexterity, social skills, and motor functions while parents struggle to manage their children’s tech consumption with only 19 percent setting and enforcing screen time limits for their kids.
Osmo designed a healthy alternative to passive screen time with Detective Agency’s hands-on play with real-world physical objects and natural stopping points that encourage kids to take a break from the screen. The company’s parent platform extends the company’s commitment to healthy screen time by providing an informative, useful and fun connection to the entire Osmo universe of experiences.
Download the free parent platform here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/osmo-parent/id1348402278
Osmo’s Detective Agency Game is available at JB HiFi, Harvey Norman, OfficeWorks, Kogan and Apple stores nationwide: RRP: $74.99.